The Four Pillars
BY: GADADHARA DASA
Jan 23, DALLAS, TEXAS (SUN) — Four Pillars of Religion, Four Pillars of Irreligion, and Four activities that destroy four pillars of religion.
Thank you, Advaita Acharya Prabhu, for your nice article, "Illicit Sex". However, there are some subtle issues as far as what destroys the four pillars of religion. Let us take a look from Srimad Bhagavatam and Srila Prabhupada's purports:
(1) Four Pillars (principles) of Religion are listed in following verse:
Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.17.24: "In the age of Satya [truthfulness] your four legs were established by the four principles of austerity, cleanliness, mercy and truthfulness. But it appears that three of your legs are broken due to rampant irreligion in the form of pride, lust for women, and intoxication."
Please note, "But it appears that three of your legs are broken due to rampant irreligion in the form of pride, lust for women, and intoxication." The three broken are austerity, purity, and mercy by pride, lust for women, and intoxication respectively.
(2) Four Pillars (principles) of Irreligion are listed in following verse:
Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.17.38: "Suta Gosvami said: Maharaja Pariksit, thus being petitioned by the personality of Kali, gave him permission to reside in places where gambling, drinking, prostitution and animal slaughter were performed."
So far so good. The Four Pillars of religion are austerity, cleanliness (purity), mercy and truthfulness; and the Four Pillars of religion are gambling, drinking, prostitution and animal slaughter (meat eating).
(3) Below is a subtle issue as to what causes destruction of the four pillars of religion.
You write: "*Meat eating destroys mercy, *intoxication destroys austerity, *gambling destroys truthfulness and *illicit sex destroys purity. "
Srila Prabhupada writes the following in his Purport to Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.17.38:
"The basic principles of irreligiosity, such as pride, prostitution, intoxication and falsehood, counteract the four principles of religion, namely austerity, cleanliness, mercy and truthfulness."
That means pride (smaya) destroys austerity, prostitution (sanga) destroys purity, intoxication (madaihi) destroys mercy, and falsehood (anrateahi) destroys truthfulness. However I think it is important to know what the finer points are here.
(a) A puffed up man will not be austere in his thoughts, words, or actions. He will fail somewhere, at least in one of the three areas.
(b) Sanga has more to it then "Sex outside marriage" taken as "Illicit Sex" by many devotees. Sanga also refers to mixing of men and women. This mixing has to be minimized if purity is to be cultivated.
(c) Intoxication destroys mercy and leads to meat eating (animal slaughter).
(d) Falsehood destroys truthfulness.
Anyone claiming to be Vaisnava must be at least a qualified brahmana, as declared by Krishna:
Bhagavad-gita 18.42: "Peacefulness, self-control, austerity, purity, tolerance, honesty, knowledge, wisdom and religiousness -- these are the natural qualities by which the brahmanas work."
How truthful/untruthful and honest/dishonest and deceitful are our leaders - GBCs, Gurus, Sannyasis, etc?
How merciful/cruel and honest/devious are our leaders - GBCs, Gurus, Sannyasis, etc.?
How humble/puffed up are our leaders - GBCs, Gurus, Sannyasis, etc.?
How pure/impure are our leaders - GBCs, Gurus, Sannyasis, etc.?
All legs of religion are important and any one leg of irreligion will cause damage.
To top it off, read the verse below:
Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.17.398: "The personality of Kali asked for something more, and because of his begging, the King gave him permission to live where there is gold because wherever there is gold there is also falsity, intoxication, lust, envy and enmity."
How many of our leaders are after money? Conversely, how many of them are free from falsity, intoxication, lust, envy and enmity?
Answers to these question will clarify where we are today.
One may want to read more detailed discussion about mixing of men and women at Dandavats, where the following part was submitted by me:
Dear Prabhus:
PAMHO, AGTSP, and Hare Krishna.
Brah Sevaki Devi Dasi bought out some very good points in her article.
(1) we see from the examples included here that there is an observance of etiquette,
that the women embrace the women, and the men embrace the men.
Thsi is the real Vedic Culture. Even to day, Hindus observe this culture to some extent. However, it is disapearing very fast due to advent of Movies and now TVs.
I want to give personal example of how this worked. I grew up in a small village in Gujarat, India with my mother, 3 elder sisters, 2 younger sisters, and 1 younger bother. My father lived in Ahmedabad - far away from our village.
This situation of my family was ideal for the women and girls of the village to come to our house and associate with each other in the absence of any men.
Generally speaking boys will associate among themselves and girls will associate among themselves. That was the village culture. Hardly they will mix and talk except for some need to communicate.
Some times boys will be asked to go out and play or whatever so that the girls and women can freely associate in our house.
They may be sewing some thing, combing hairs of each other, may bring their vegetables to get it cut up, and gossip etc. But they felt great relief coming to our house. As such our house was always full with women and girls - particularly during noon and evenings in Summer.
When relatives came from other village then greetings will be offered - men to men, and women to women, not by hugging but by words, gestures, by hodling hands, by saying Rama Rama and men holding each other’s hand with both hands. Men and women may great both boys and girls. Once greeting part is over, men will be given a place to sit down far away from ladies - ladies may sit inside the room and men may sit outside in porch area.
Srila Prabhupada often quotes that once should not sit with one’s mother, sister, or daughter in a solitary place.
(2) Srila Prabhupada told of how, even in his day, women were very shy to see men
So in our village - conversation between men and women will be very short and for a need. The area I come from, generally a girl was not married in the same village. That kept the atmoshere in the village pure - generally no one will even think of marrying some boy or girl in the same village. So relationship among boys and girls was that of brother and sister.
However, my mother was married in the same village due to some special situation. In a villages of 300 families there were couple of exceptions like that. So many times men and boys of the village wil come to our house also. In that case ladies may disperse and go home and some times men will disperse and go home and ladies will stay.
(3) All marriages were arranged marriages:
So boy or girl had nothing to say - they were not even shown to each other - neither were they asked their opinion. It was not their freedom to find wife or husband. It was parents duty to get their children married as they saw fit.
So this also prevented even thought process of finding girl or boy and getting married. Such atmoshere is hard to imagine for those who grew up in Western Culture - where mixing of men and women starts from day one.
(4) Srimad Bhagavatam says - smaya, sanga, madaihi, anratehi - price, mxing of men and women, intoxication, and false propaganda destroy four legs of religion namely - austerity, purety, mercy, and truth respectively.
So how can we be unaffected if we mix all the time among men and women and girls and boys?
(5) Have doubts - read story of Ajamil - and all lectures given by HDG Srila Prabhupada
Here is one lecture - it should be more than sufficient to understand this matter:
http://www.prabhupadavani.org/.....t/529.html
I can be contacted at - gordhan_goyani@yahoo.com
